Virginia City Cemeteries, The Forgotten

 Virginia City, the old mining town

Walking the streets of Virginia City is like stepping back in time when gold and silver miners traveled out west from all over the world to get there hands on some of the riches that was being pulled out of the ground in the 19th century in and around Virginia City. People were coming from all over the United States and immigrants from around the world to mine the hills and settle in the area, they also needed a place to bury their dead so they carve out a spot in the foothills in Virginia City.

Virginia City in the 1800’s

As you enter the historic cemetery it looks like it’s one huge cemetery as a lot of the fences have fallen down, but as you walk though the cemetery you can tell how the groups have sectioned off area’s around the large site. The Virginia City Cemetery is actually a collection of cemeteries that were build by different religious and organizations like Pioneer, Exempt Firemen, Masons, Order of Oddfellows among others that is in one large location now called Silver Terrace Cemetery

As you walk around cemeteries you can really see the rough the times that the families had back in the early days of the west migration in and around the old mining town of Virginia City in the 1800’s.

Many of the residents are from this high desert area, but a lot of the people that are buried there are from places far away like Ireland and Wales among other countries that are also buried here at the Silver Terrace Cemeteries. And many buried at the historic cemetery are young children just one of the many signs how rough it might have been in the early days in and around this High Desert area, you can see the stories unfold by reading the headstones.

Virgina City Cemeteries

What stories do you see in the photos

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Headstones at the Virginia City Cemeteries

Reading the headstones at the historic cemetery can tell us a lot about what the people in this area had gone thru, many had traveled from other countries, it’s amazing that someone would travel so far with not much more than the clothes on their back, it wasn’t like they could grab a flight and get here in a few hours.

You will come across headstones like that of the Lichtenberg children, Bertha who was named after her mother died at the age of 3 months, she would of been the older sister because 10 months later Wilhelm was born and he died less than 2 months after being born in September one year after his sisters death in the same month of September, how… why.... you might wonder as I did, and how about the mother. There are similar stories throughout the cemetery.

Virginia City Cemeteries forgotten by some but not all

As you walk though the grounds you will quickly notice there are no flowers on the decaying grave sites as it seems as though they were forgotten. When you look though the photos take a moment and see what stories you take out of The Forgotten Cemeteries of this old mining town

Upon entering the cemetery I expected to see 50 plus people visiting the historic site, but there was nobody there, even though right down the hill that you can see from here are thousands of visitors to Virginia City attending the Hot August Nights weekend event. Maybe this historic site might not be well known.

It’s great that organizations like Comstock Cemetery Foundation, Nevada City Cemetery Project are helping document the inhabitant and artifacts, and maintaining the site.

There are over 4000 buried here but only about 1300 headstone that are left due to theft and vandalism that is why it’s so important that these organizations and volunteers are helping to preserve this historic site for the next generation to see. I do believe people will do the right thing in keeping these historic places preserved for the generations, but we need these organizations to help protect these historic sites.

Virginia City Cemeteries

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